It seems there is more in the ‘gap’ than meets the eye. The familiar voice saying these words: “mind the gap” is a well known sound in the London underground. Recently in Perth a man’s leg got stuck in the ‘gap’ between the train and the platform and he was freed by people power.

Travelling and luggage, it goes hand in hand. Those of you who travel often will know that coming into and out of countries, there are always officials checking; dogs sniffing and asking questions like: "Have you packed your own luggage?", staring friendly but firmly at you and I usually have that awkward feeling that perhaps some object has found its way into my luggage and I will be handcuffed and led away.

The two children are looking longingly at the display of cakes in the glass cabinet, their eyes glistening with desire and I can see their mouths watering at the colourful display. “No, absolutely not!” comes the stern and almost angry voice form the mother. The “but moooommm”, reply from the kids are swarmed by the mother’s words of “lactose intolerance” and “gluten free” and “allergies” and on and on it went.

These words and beautiful melody from the musical The Sound of Music was always one of my favourites. It was only much later in my life that an extra dimension of deeper meaning emerged and it will never be possible to listen to this music in the exactly same way I used to.

NLP as a discipline has some underlying core beliefs or ‘truths’ which we call presuppositions. These beliefs come from the people who were modelled in the early years of NLP; therapists like Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir and Gregory Bateson. It was their beliefs and how they thought about life and people ..........

It was a blue-blue sky morning in Perth. My heart was pumping like a fire engine. I was beyond the end of my physical resources after a very hard and intense physical workout with my trainer, when he looked meaningful and intensely at me and said: ............

One morning, as I was strolling through one of the open markers in the beautiful old port of Fremantle Perth, my eyes caught the ‘Free DVD’s’ sign. On closer inspection it was DVD’s on the topic of Creation versus Evolution. The friendly and very helpful man was quick to put one in my hand as he was saying: “Just one minute of your time......do you know that Jesus loves you........? “

During a recent NLP Hypnosis Training in Cape Town I was totally bowled over during breakfast as I again realised the power of NLP. I was waiting for my eggs to be done - sunny side up - and smiled at the lady on the other side of the counter while she was fried up my fare

During the last month I had the privilege of attending a wedding and a funeral on two different continents while visiting friends who asked me to join in. Having a more objective perspective on these rituals in this context helped me to see things I wouldn’t otherwise have noticed. And in the end life is all about the way how you see and perceive it.

During my years of studying in the field of Psychology the emphasis was always on analysis, labelling and understanding problems. In itself that is ok; although a great part of human behaviour was completely missed out on upon.

As a young boy I remember my excitement when the posters all over the town announced the arrival of the circus soon. We would often just stand and stare at the posters, admiring the scantily dressed trapeze artists, animals like tigers, elephants and lions and always a clown; smiling and promising fun. For some children clowns were quite scary characters and quite a number of times working as an NLP Practitioner today I have had to do a phobia cure for people who are scared of them.

A person travelled for many days to the Himalayas to seek 'The True Meaning of Life'. He went to a sage, meditating in a cave. Tired from his journey, but eager and expectant that the 'ultimate mystery of life' was going to be revealed to him in the next moment, he asked the sage, "What is the meaning of life?&quot;

I was still in school when I heard this Andrew Lloyd Weber song for the first time. I fell hopelessly in love in grade 9 and for two years I was in my own hypnotic love-sick state of love; listening to this song over and over.

Because of the nature of my work and also the present context of the country we live in, trauma related problems seem to make up a bigger part of my daily pot mix. It was Virginia Satir - one of the amazing people who were modelled when NLP began in the 1970's who said: "Very often the presenting problem is not the problem or else there is more behind it which can be investigated." The truth of these words became evident when I worked with a client who was sent to me because of a traumatic house attack.

The mysteries of the mind and how it codes information is one of the most exciting aspects of my work. A client who was going through a difficult divorce and who was seeing me for some time booked a session to deal with the stress related to the divorce.

One of many interesting techniques being taught in NLP is 'Parts Integration'. There is not a one client who have not benefitted from this beautiful technique. In short the theory behind it is that a person develop different 'unconscious parts' whenever trauma is experienced, especially at a young age to help the child cope and 'survive' in the traumatic context

She looked tired and wearied down although beautifully dressed. The emotional aftermath of a divorce was written all over her face. Worrying about financial security after a 35 year marriage and beginning a new life proved to be very difficult for her. She came to me to help her see light again, to have hope that she will be ok. Filled with bitterness, anger and regret she said: "For me; he is dead now!"

About a year ago I began seeing a client whose son of two years old, drowned in the swimming pool. She once mentioned it in a session but steered the conversation away from that. Over a period of a year, time and time again the sessions gravitated back to this event automatically but still she didn't want to go there, even though it was 10 years after the event had happened. Then one day without me asking anything she told me this mind-blowing story.

One of the many things that I find fascinating in this Universe we live in, is that a client's presenting problem is sometimes not the 'problem' to work with. It is often just the beginning of a trail which needs to be followed to the real problem. In her book, 'Why Good People do Bad Things', Debbie Ford states that the mask (in this case anger) always has the opposite feeling residing underneath. More often than not, it is fear.

A 'six step reframe' is for me still one of the most fascinating NLP techniques which are usually taught at the NLP Practitioner's course. After all the years of doing NLP I still find this one of the most powerful processes as I again discovered recently.

While watching a broadcast on the ancient Vietnamese temple of Angkor Wat, one of the most magnificent ancient wonders of the world, I was struck by something very interesting. Building a temple of this magnitude on the specific site was almost impossible.

In NLP (NEURO LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING) we pay a lot of attention to the communication of the unconscious mind. That means we listen and look very closely, often to what the person is not saying. We also involve the body, and take notice of all sensations in the body. 'Calibration' is the word in NLP for this. To illustrate this here is an amazing little story........

"Very often when working with a client the words: "I don't know", will come up. And a good NLP Practitioner will know that consciously the person might not know but when it comes to the unconscious mind there will always be an 'unconscious' indication of what the client wants."